Belgium vs NL

Last week I was very ambitious in saying that I hoped the Dutch team could win from the Belgians. We lost from them with less points in every event. Luckily there are many of those good skiers that don't mind coaching us, and thus we learn from our neighbours. On a personal level it was a good competition for many of the Dutch team. Usually I evaluate the events in order of skiing, thus slalom, tricks, then jumps, however, I am going to save the best for last, which is tricks. 

On Friday I wanted to go to the competition site early to be able to train on the lake and receive some coaching, from one of the said Belgian skiers. There was a lot of wind, which affected the lake, but nonetheless I managed to run my 18 and 16 meter passes, which I feel I should always be able to run. Afterwards, there was some work to do on my gate at the 14 meter pass. In those conditions I skied 2 at 14, which I thought was promising for the competition, which would be skied in better weather conditions. On Saturday it was time to find out if I could pass more than 2 bouys at 14, the wind had calmed down and the water looked promising. I was happy to clear 18 and 16; I want to expect this for every competition, but it still proves to be challenging some times. Then I was thinking a lot about my gate for 14. I wanted to go a bit earlier, so that I  had time to think and could go very wide. This was not smart, as I was much too early and had such a bad gate, with very little angle to the bouy that I couldn't get more than half a bouy at 14. This was not a terrible score, though I would have liked more. The bad part, however, was that it was 2 places short of the final, which was dissapointing. 

At the end of the day there was jumping. A spot in the final was garuanteed, as 16 skiers would proceed, and there were 8 skiers. The wind was oke and I had heard that the ramp was nice to jump on. In this round I jumped 23.3 meters, I wished to jump more, but it was not bad. In overall points, which are compensated for age categorie and gender, I was only 3 points behind 2 other guys, who both had the same amount of overall points. To pass them was a nice goal for the final! In the final the wind was worse than in the prelimenary round on Saturday. The distance was

therefore less, 21.9 meters, which I am somehow able to jump very often. However, other skiers also couldn't improve on their preliminary score, due to the wind. In overall points I got third place for all ages and all genders combined of the BeNeLux, which was very unexpected.

Finally the event which was most dissapointing and most exciting. In the tricks preliminaries, I put down a great hands run. However, my 2 last tricks were out of the allowed time, which cost me quite some points. Furthermore in my second run, which is toes, I fell on my TO, which sounds like Europeans and last weeks competition. This was extremely dissapointing. Not just the score, but the fact that it keeps happening, even though in training, it is a stable trick. I was really knocked down by this mentally. I was thinking back at all the times this had happened and the fact that I did a PB in tricks in the beginning of the season, but not in any of the following competitions. I got even more upset thinking about the hours of training I put into tricks and that none of it was showing at competition. After all other trickers had skied, I saw that I miraculously got into the finals, even though I only finished one of my runs. This means I really had to let go all the dissapointment if I wanted a shot at getting a new PB. Luckily I've had enough practise in that by now. I changed my hands run slightly, by leaving  out the first 2 tricks in the hope that the last 2 would be in the time. This is because the first tricks are worth much less than those last two. It was quite a gamble, because in order for this to work, I had to do my entire hands run, including those last 2. Thankfully the team was very encouraging. I did my entire hands run and I expected my last 2 tricks to be in the time. Now it was time to overcome the first tricks in toes. The TO, I knew I could do it, but the competition results begged to differ. I took a couple of deep breaths on the boat. Just before the starting bouy I looked at my dad, who would release the rope should I fall, the same way as I did at Europeans. Only now the look on my face did not scream 'I am about to fall' it said 'don't let go, I'll make it this time'. And that I did, and afterwards every other trick in my run, including a reverse back to back, which I had never done in competition! Now it was waiting for the scores to see if everything was in time and credited by the judges... it was!! I now have a new PB of 2920

points, which is 360 points up from my last PB, and furthermore shows the 360 in mindset between the

prelimenary round and the final! I am overjoyed and now the focus is on slalom. If I manage to put a great score in that in one of the last 2 competition, I will have met all the slightly ambitious goals which I had set with my dad for this year!